How fiction defines the future

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

However, literature never sets itself the task of predicting the future. Science fiction shows us one of the possible options. According to Ursula Le Guin, the future is attractive precisely because it is impossible to know. “This is a black box about which you can say whatever you want without fear that someone will correct you, - said the famous writer in an interview with the Smithsonian Institution. "It's a safe, sterile laboratory for testing ideas, a means of thinking about reality, a method."

Some writers are experimenting to show where modern social trends and scientific and technological breakthroughs can take us. For example, William Gibson (the author of the term "cyberspace") in the 1980s portrayed a hyper-connected global society, where hackers, cyber warfare and reality TV became a part of everyday life.

For other authors, the future is just a metaphor. In Ursula Le Guin's novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), the action takes place in a distant world inhabited by genetically modified hermaphrodites. Philosophical questions about the nature of man and society are raised here.

Since science fiction is capable of covering the widest range of the probable and the simply unusual, its relationship with science is ambiguous. For every author who is aware of the latest advances in physics and computer technology, there is a writer who invents an "impossible" technology (like the same Ursula Le Guin with her ansible, which allows you to communicate at superluminal speeds) or who creates frank fairy tales in order to express his attitude to modern social trends (like H. G. Wells).

Sometimes, however, it happens that the strangest ideas suddenly become reality. This is partly probably due to the fact that the science fiction writer gave a good idea, lit a creative fire in the soul of a scientist or engineer. In Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon (1865) Michel Ardant exclaims: “We are just idlers, slow-moving, because the speed of our projectile will reach nine thousand nine hundred leagues only in the first hour, and then will begin to decrease. Tell me if you please, is there something to be delighted with? Isn't it obvious that soon people will achieve even more significant speeds with the help of light or electricity? (Per. Marko Vovchok.) And indeed, today work is in full swing on the creation of spaceships under a solar sail.

Astrophysicist Jordin Kare from LaserMotive (USA), who has worked a lot with lasers, space elevators and solar sail, does not hesitate to admit that it was reading science fiction that determined his life and career: “I went to astrophysics because I was interested in large-scale phenomena in the Universe, and I entered MIT because the hero of Robert Heinlein's novel “I have a spacesuit - ready to travel” did so. Mr. Care is an active participant in SF gatherings. Moreover, according to him, those who are at the forefront of science and technology today also often have close ties with the SF world.

Microsoft, Google, Apple and other corporations invite science fiction writers to lecture their employees. Perhaps nothing demonstrates this sacramental connection more than the fantastic designs of designers, which are encouraged by a lot of money, because they generate new ideas. Rumor has it that some firms pay writers to write stories about new products to see if they will sell, how they will impress potential customers.

"I love this kind of fiction," says Corey Doctorow, who has seen Disney and Tesco among his clients. “It's no surprise that a company commissions a piece on a new technology to see if the further effort is worth the trouble. Architects create virtual flights of future buildings”. The writer Doctorow knows what he's talking about: he was in software development and was on both sides of the barricades.

It is worth noting that with all the variety of authors and creative manners, general trends stand out clearly. At the beginning of the 20th century, science fiction sang a laudatory hymn to scientific and technological progress, thanks to which life becomes better and easier (of course, there have always been exceptions, there are and will be). However, by the middle of the century, due to the terrible wars and the appearance of atomic weapons, the mood had changed. Novels and stories were dressed in dark tones, and science ceased to be an unambiguously positive hero.

In recent decades, the love of dystopia has shone even brighter - like a black hole. A thought that philosophers expressed a long time ago is firmly established in the mass consciousness: humanity has not grown to the toys that scientists gave it. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1979) by John Klute quoted Bertrand Russell's Icarus (1924), in which the philosopher doubted that science would bring happiness to humanity. Rather, it will only strengthen the strength of those already in power. In an interview with Smithsonian.org, Mr. Klute emphasizes that, according to popular belief, the world is created by those who benefit from it. Consequently, the world is what it is now, so that someone can make money on it.

This point of view is shared by Kim Stanley Robinson (the Mars trilogy, the novels 2312, The Shaman, etc.). In his opinion, it is precisely these sentiments that determine the astonishing success of Susan Collins' trilogy The Hunger Games (2008–2010), in which the wealthy elite arrange merciless gladiatorial battles in order to sow fear among the downtrodden impoverished lower classes. “The era of big ideas, when we believed in a better future, is long gone,” says Mr. Robinson. “Today the rich own nine-tenths of everything in the world, and we have to fight each other for the remaining one-tenth. And if we are indignant, we are immediately accused of rocking the boat and smearing our liver on the cobblestones. While we are starving, they bathe in unthinkable luxury and amuse themselves with our suffering. That's what The Hunger Games is about. No wonder the book has generated such interest."

In turn, William Gibson considers the division of fiction into dystopian and utopian senseless. His landmark work "Neuromancer" (1984), which depicts not the most attractive future with a lack of everything and everyone, he refuses to call pessimistic. “I've always wanted to write in a naturalistic manner, that's all,” says the cyberpunk patriarch. - In fact, in the eighties I was very far from dystopian sentiments, because I was describing a world that survived the post-Cold War. To many intellectuals of that time, such an outcome seemed incredible."

Mr. Robinson is also difficult to attribute to one camp or another. Although he tackles such dire topics as nuclear war, environmental disaster and climate change, there is no desperation in his books. It strives to provide a realistic, scientifically sound solution to a problem.

Neil Stevenson (Anathema, Reamde, etc.) got tired of dystopias so much that he urged colleagues to portray the future as it could be if humanity did get to grips with it. He suggests returning to the literature of “big ideas” so that the younger generation of scientists and engineers can have a new source of inspiration. Mr. Stevenson praises Mr. Robinson and Greg and Jim Benford for lighting the torch of optimism. Cyberpunk is also needed, he says, as it opens up new avenues of research, but an unhealthy interest in this "genre" has arisen in popular culture. “Talk to the directors - they are all convinced that nothing cooler than Blade Runner has emerged in science fiction in thirty years,” complains Mr. Stevenson. "It is high time to move away from these ideas."

In 2012, Mr. Stevenson and the Center for Science and Imagination at Arizona State University (USA) launched the Hieroglyph web project, which encourages everyone (writers, scientists, artists, engineers) to share their views on what our bright future could be. In September, the first volume of the anthology "Hieroglyph: Stories and Drawings of a Better Future" will be published. In the list of authors, you will see several illustrious names. Corey Doctorow, for example, will talk about how buildings will be 3D printed on the Moon. Neil Stephenson himself came up with a huge skyscraper, going into the stratosphere, from which spacecraft will be launched to save fuel.

Ted Chan ("The Life Cycle of Software Objects") points out that in fact, optimism has never left the world of science and technology. It was just that earlier he relied on the belief in cheap nuclear energy, which allowed the construction of huge structures and seemed absolutely safe. And now specialists are looking at computers with the same hope. But stories about super-powerful computers only frighten the layman, because, unlike giant cities, buildings and space stations, computer technology and software seem to be something abstract, incomprehensible. In recent years, computers have also become commonplace.

Maybe because SF stopped inspiring, young people gave up on it? Sophia Brueckner and Dan Nova of the famous MIT Media Lab are amazed that new students are not fond of science fiction at all. Excellent students consider it to be children's literature. Or maybe, because of their studies, they simply do not have time for dreams?

Last fall, Brueckner and Nova offered a course, Science Fiction to Science Modeling, which included reading books, watching movies and even playing video games with students. Young people were encouraged to develop prototype devices based on these works and think about how they could change society. For example, the sinister technology from Neuromancer, which allows you to manipulate the muscles of another person and turns him into an obedient doll, students would like to use to heal paralyzed people.

The same can be said about genetic and other biotechnologies, which today are actively used to frighten the common man. But science fiction writers have been developing these themes for decades, and not necessarily in a dystopian manner. Why not learn good from them? It's not about technology, it's about the people who use it. Tales of a bleak future are not a prediction, but a warning. It is natural for a person to think over all possible consequences.

Based on materials from the Smithsonian Institution.